(JP) BSE tests target a million cattle/Fish may have got feed MBM

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http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010920a3.htm

 

BSE tests target a million cattle

Shipments to meat plants to halt before EU-style

checks

 

The Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry plans to test

all of the nation's 1 million cows aged 30 months and

over for mad cow disease by adopting screening methods

used by the European Union, ministry officials said

Wednesday.

 

Health vice minister Jungoro Kondo explains the

stricter inspections that will take place to prevent

mad cow disease.

 

The ministry also said it will ask farmers nationwide

to suspend shipments of such cows to meat processing

plants until the new inspection system gets under way

in October.

 

The measure, which will require farmers to breed their

cows for a longer period, could dampen domestic beef

consumption. The farm ministry will consider providing

subsidies to farmers or emergency loans to meat

wholesalers to ease the negative impact on their

business, the officials said.

 

The ministry decided to expand the scope of existing

tests for mad cow disease, formally known as bovine

spongiform encephalopathy, after a Holstein at a farm

in Chiba Prefecture earlier this month was suspected

of being Japan's first known carrier of the disease,

the officials said.

 

The tests, to be conducted at 117 hygiene inspection

centers across the country, will be performed on all

cows aged 30 months or over that are destined to be

processed into meat for human consumption. Studies in

Europe suggest that symptoms of mad cow disease mostly

appear in cows aged 30 months or over.

 

The EU has dealt with several outbreaks of the disease

in recent years. The total cost of the inspections in

Japan will be about 3 billion yen, the officials said.

 

The ministry's Inspection and Safety Division said the

costly tests are necessary to ensure the safety of

beef.

 

Since May, the ministry has conducted intensive

examinations on cows aged 2 years or over that have

shown symptoms of the disease, such as being unable to

stand. It will continue conducting checkups on cows

aged between 24 months to 30 months.

 

Some 1.3 million cows are processed into meat each

year in Japan. Of them, about 1 million are 30 months

old or over, the ministry said.

 

The new methods will reduce inspection time, the

officials said.

 

To test a suspect cow, the ministry usually sends it

to Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary

Medicine in Hokkaido, where a 48-hour inspection is

conducted. However, the new testing methods require

only four to six hours.

 

Testing of the 1 million head of cattle will begin

next month once inspectors have been fully trained in

the new techniques. The ministry plans to examine

500,000 cows by next March.

 

Mad cow disease was first confirmed in Britain in

1986. The disease is thought to cause the fatal human

variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.

 

Fish may have got feed

 

MATSUYAMA, Ehime Pref. (Kyodo) Bone-and-meat feed made

from parts of a dairy cow suspected of having mad cow

disease may have been fed to fish at farms in Uwajima,

Ehime Prefecture, prefectural officials said

Wednesday.

The feed in question was produced at a plant in

Ibaraki Prefecture and used parts from a cow believed

to have contracted the disease. The cow was kept at a

dairy farm in Chiba Prefecture.

 

Some 100 tons of the feed was shipped to a wholesaler

in Tokushima Prefecture.

 

On Wednesday, officials at Ehime Prefecture's

livestock division said it has found that part of that

feed was already sold to a firm in Uwajima, and that

some of it may have been given to fish.

 

Agriculture officials nationwide have been working

since last week -- when the suspect cow came to light

-- to track down the shipping routes of the

meat-and-bone meal, as well as cows that were bred at

the same farm in Saroma, Hokkaido, as the animal in

question.

 

The Japan Times: Sept. 20, 2001

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